Timely Defense

by Nathalie Gray

  “There’s nothing wrong with my ears, they hear you perfectly now just as they did yesterday night when—”

  “Leave my study, Sir Ayjay.”

  “With pleasure. But playing the simple-minded bimbo won’t help you in court. I’ve cut through bullshit much better than yours.”

  Her palm had already connected with his cheek by the time she realized she’d slapped him. He barely flinched. “Slapping people seems to be contagious around here. I suggest you don’t ever do that to me again. I’m not in the mood to be jerked around. Two men are dead, our plane has been missing for days. In a matter of hours, the place will be crawling with cops. Don’t make your case worse than it is already.”

  Ours? Copse?

  “Leave.”

  “Fine.”

  Chapter Five

  “Eleven forty-eight,” A.J. muttered as he angrily slapped his jacket across the chair. Christ he reeked! “Two days in the same damn suit. Plus a crash-landing, plus having my face stitched back together with sheep intestine, plus taking a shit in a pit, plus no fucking toilet paper or toothbrush, plus being stuck with a bunch of lunatics…and now I’m wearing Eau de Horse perfume. What else will go wrong?”

  Someone was so getting sued for this.

  He collapsed on the bed and punched the pillow just for good measure. By his golf bag, still set the way they’d been, were the various bits and pieces Marion’s men had found near the wreckage. They had no fucking clue what a crime scene was obviously. Didn’t their TV shows teach them not to touch a thing?

  “Hey!”

  A.J. flipped his legs on the other side of the bed and went through the junk. There was his MP3 player, headphones missing. Useless now, Christ. He dropped it back on the chair. A bright green plastic lighter caught his attention. Must have been one of the pilots’. A.J. tried it. It worked still. He pocketed it.

  Who knew I’d be excited to get my hands on an old plastic lighter. This crash was turning into a bad mind screw. Foil sticking out from underneath a piece of broken plastic caught his attention.

  “Oh yeah!”

  With near reverence, A.J. carefully unwrapped the very last stick of gum from the crumpled pack and closing his eyes, put it on his tongue. For some reason, he put the empty pack of gum in his pants pocket. Mint, by God, MINT. Two days without a toothbrush…

  A.J. spent the remainder of the day in his room, alternatively pacing and crashing down on the bed, or sitting in morose silence whenever one of the “maids” came around to poke around his room or bring him something to drink or eat. A.J. didn’t want anything but they wouldn’t leave without setting the tray down. He’d never seen actors so convincing. Never once out of character. Although he’d begun to change his views about things and now was convinced this probably wasn’t a play but a cult. Medieval enthusiasts his ass. He’d landed right in the middle of a Middle Ages anti-progress cult. Probably some brain-dead, bloodless name like “Order of the Alpine Resistance to Progress”. “Mountain People Against Indoor Plumbing”. Just his luck.

  When darkness started seeping in through the parted curtains, A.J. shook out his jacket and put it back on. He’d need fresh clothes soon and there was no way in hell he’d be wearing a skirt as the men around these parts did.

  An abrupt knock came to his door. He grunted in response and Marion entered. Her eyes were red but hard. He wondered if she were the cult leader or if perhaps that Matheus asshole was behind it all.

  “Thomas waits for us at the tower. Please come with me.”

  She turned, offering him a nice view of her curvy hips cinched by the belt. Those huge keys—totally period—clicked and clanged as she marched out without checking back to see if he was following. He was, of course. Wouldn’t miss this for the world.

  Very period-looking torches had been lit along the walls and gave off honest-to-God smoke that stung the eyes and throat. So they intended to die as young as real Middle Ages folks had. That’s commitment.

  Dark, damp and too-low corridors, more torches than he could count, slippery stone floors—he did not want to know why they were so slippery—until finally Marion took him to a door where a spiral staircase climbed into thick darkness. After she grabbed a candle and a small pewter dish from a wooden box on the floor, which he supposed had been placed there for such reason, she spent a while striking something against a walnut-sized stone.

  “Here,” he said, taking the lighter out and offering it to her. When he lit it, she gasped and leaped back a step.

  “How…?”

  The look on her face!

  “What?” he demanded, for some reason instantly annoyed. “It’s a lighter, it makes light. Well, fire, actually.”

  “I can see that,” she retorted. Her hands shook. “I have never seen anything like it before.”

  A.J. knew his smile wasn’t very nice. “Oh I forgot,” he whispered. “We’re not supposed to know about fire yet. Shhh.”

  “Your vile tongue will get you in trouble, Sir Ayjay.”

  “I sure hope so,” he replied as he lit the candle and pocketed the lighter.

  “Be careful, the ceiling is very low,” she snapped before climbing the steps in a practiced manner. She kept the light high in front of her.

  Too bad he had neither practice nor light. He must have bumped his head ten times as he climbed the unending series of maladjusted, worn-smooth-with-use steps, each one more treacherous than its predecessor. Except from burning his thumb, the lighter was useless as a source of light. His eyebrow burned and he still hadn’t been able to find a decent mirror to check it out. Muttering curses, he tried to keep the trembling glow in sight. And Marion’s delicious butt as well. Hips swung in a pendulum as she climbed, her long blonde tress swinging down her back. His palms began to itch at the memory of her soft body against his. It’d been one good lay. Too short, but good. And he’d been drunk. He could only imagine how great it would’ve been had he been sober enough to really give her all his attention. And that tight little pussy, mm-mmm.

  “Here we are,” she announced.

  And there they were.

  Marion set the pewter dish containing their precious candle down by another just inside the doorway so the wind wouldn’t blow it out. A soft breeze caressed his unshaven cheeks as he climbed the last few steps. He wished he would’ve kept a piece of the gum for later. Raking a hand in his hair, he emerged onto a sort of square terrace surrounded by those thick things that resembled giant stone dentures with serious gaps. Oh yeah, crenels.

  Thomas waited for them, sitting between two crenels. “Sir Ayjay, how good of you to come.” He stood and made a beeline for A.J.

  “No hug, man, just show me.”

  A quick grin confirmed he’d been about to do exactly what A.J. was afraid he would. “Of course. And fortune smiles on us tonight for the proof is already out and shining brightly.” He pointed up with a long index finger.

  A.J. looked up at the sky. A nice midnight blue sky with lots and lots of stars. Jeez. He’d never seen so many. And so bright. “Yeah, very nice. So what?”

  “Are you familiar with Ursae Majoris and Ursae Minoris?”

  “No.”

  He could tell Marion was though and it piqued his pride.

  Thomas sighed and put both hands up, using his index and thumb fingers as a sort of square frame. “Ursae Majoris, Great Bear in Latin, is—”

  “Part of a constellation, yeah, yeah, so I guess the other name you said is the Little Bear. It’s all very nice but I know where they are, which is right there.” A.J. pointed up and slightly north—or what he thought was north—but after searching for a few seconds, couldn’t find either.

  “Can you not find the bears, Sir Ayjay?” Thomas asked in a “closing argument” tone of voice A.J. didn’t like very much. Sounded a bit too triumphant.

  “They’re right overhead, or at least the tail of the Little Bear is because it’s the North Star.” Again, he pointed to where he could swear the Little Dipper should be a
nd found a cluster of stars but nothing closely resembling a dipper or a bear or anything else for that matter. Where the hell is the North Star?

  ‘Kay…

  A shiver raced up his back.

  Thomas turned on himself, hands still upward. “Lady Marion, if you would.”

  She drew near and looked inside the “frame” made by his fingers. “Do you see Ursae Majoris?”

  She nodded, gave a quick peek at A.J. and moved out of the way so he could play too. Muttering a curse, he leaned over Thomas’ shoulder—who angled his chin slightly so he could look at A.J.’s face—and searched for the Big Dipper. But Thomas’ hands were much to low. No way the Big—

  There it was. Whoa.

  “And now for the Little Bear.”

  Thomas moved the frame much farther than A.J. would’ve thought in search of the Little Dipper. And right there, shining bright, was the North Star, right where it should be at the end of the handle, only the whole thing wasn’t at all where he would’ve expected it to be.

  So the stars weren’t in the right place. So what?

  It’s because I’m in Europe and not in North America, that’s why the stars aren’t in the usual place.

  Thomas lowered his hands but continued staring.

  Marion seemed to wait for A.J. to say something. But the thing was, he didn’t know what to say. The stars were all wrong. Unless he was confused…

  Yeah, crash-landed, got bonked on the head by hell knew what, got stitched back together using infected animal innards, probably got some brain-eating bacteria crawling around there…so yeah, I am confused.

  “I’ve never looked at the stars from around here. Where I come from, they look different…”

  It sounded lame even to him. A migraine was already trying to squeeze into his eye sockets and pinch his optic nerves. He grimaced and pressed the bridge of his nose. He was starting to believe stress really was killing him.

  “Surely you do not come from so far away that the sky would be different,” Marion murmured, drawing near and placing a hand on his forearm. Her concern shined brightly in her big blue eyes.

  He gazed down at her, shrugged because he didn’t know what else to do then looked back at Thomas, who wore a sort of happy-sad expression. What was up with him?

  “It doesn’t make any sense. The North Star should be up higher, Christ, not down there.” He waved in a general southward direction. “And anyway, how come you know all about stars, huh? Are you Nostradamus or something?”

  “I studied the celestial bodies with some of the monks from Saint Goddard because I needed to travel. In return for Lady Marion’s long-standing hospitality, I passed on the way of the stars to her when I returned from Bologna. But who is nostra damus? ‘Our lady’? What lady?” Thomas threw a quick, worried glance at Marion.

  A.J. meant to roll his eyes but it hurt too much. “Never mind.”

  Marion shook her head at his curt tone. “Sir Ayjay, we are trying to help you.”

  “You’re showing me stars I know for a fact shouldn’t be where they are. Even the sky is different. So help me what? Scramble my brain even more?!”

  “See the truth, Sir Ayjay,” Thomas replied with a sad smile. “You were attacked on the road to Sargans, left for dead, which is not surprising. Norman lords are not exactly common around these parts and surely your entourage drew attention to itself. You were lucky Lady Marion’s men found you when they did.”

  A.J. felt like a mental patient trying to convince the wardens to let him out, that there had been some huge mistake and he hadn’t really tried to jump off the roof or eat his neighbor’s foot while he slept. Just a big misunderstanding. A nervous giggle tightened his throat. Christ.

  Marion exchanged a look with her friend. A.J. pretended not to have seen it. He also pretended it didn’t hurt that she thought he was a basket case. Man, did I knock my head hard. Everything usually was so clear. He felt his spine curve under the weight of his confusion and doubt and the killer migraine ratcheting up the pressure behind his eyes. Oh it’d be a good one.

  “For what it is worth to you, Sir Ayjay, I am glad indeed Lady Marion has offered you sanctuary, at least until you are healed or your Norman countrymen come find you. And I shall be sad when they do.” Thomas grinned as he patted A.J.’s shoulder. His fingers lingered before he took them away.

  “My home is yours for as long as you shall require it to be,” Marion said with a smile A.J. thought resembled a pained grimace. “Perhaps you shall remember more with time. We could then send a courier to your homeland, warn them of their lord’s whereabouts.” She didn’t sound too convinced.

  Thomas nodded solemnly. They seemed to be having a good time convincing themselves he was a lost Norman lord with a bad case of the cracked pot.

  She thinks I’ve lost my mind. They both do. Maybe I have.

  A Norman. A fucking Norman! Weren’t those supposed to be some kind of barbarians? Hi, my name is A.J., I pillage and rape for a living. What about you? Oh in the beheading profession? Nice to meet you.

  “I bid you both good night,” Thomas said before taking a candle with him down a few steps. “The stars do not lie, Sir Ayjay,” he added, his disembodied voice ominous.

  A.J. had to sit. Right now.

  He collapsed where Thomas had been sitting, the stone still warm in places. A part of him had already begun to assess the situation, trying to turn it to his advantage as he usually did, to find the silver lining in this cloud…although he was starting to think this particular one was the mushroom-shaped kind. An internal debate muted everything else.

  Eleven forty-eight they’d said. Fourth year of What’s His Name the Pope. So the plane had somehow managed to leap back a few hundreds years. Ha.

  What am I saying? You can’t fly through time. This isn’t the fucking Time Machine!

  He swore he heard the theme music for The Twilight Zone floating around. Tudu-du-du, tudu-du-duuuu. Rubbing his eyes with his palms didn’t alleviate the monster migraine tightening his nape. And he knew for a fact there weren’t any painkillers in the Middle Ages.

  A.J. couldn’t help checking his watch again. Eight thirty-four p.m., Saturday, August twenty-six, two thousand and six. “You know,” he began slowly, embarrassed at the tremor in his voice. “This thing tells time. And it’s telling me that either I’m losing my mind or you’re lying.”

  Marion barely spared a glance at his watch, too busy looking at him with those big worried eyes.

  “At least look at it.”

  He didn’t know if it was the anger or the desperation in his voice that made her give a quick peek at his watch. Lady Marion looked uncomfortable to the highest degree. She clearly didn’t know what to say.

  “Look here,” he said, pointing to his watch’s face. “That needle tells the hours. There are twenty-four per day. And the long one here, it tells you the minutes. Sixty minutes for every hour. And over there, that’s today’s date. Twenty-six, zero-eight, zero-six.”

  She nodded, her expression grave.

  A.J. wanted to laugh. She was a very bad liar. A thought came to him. “Oh I have something else.” He fished around his pockets and retrieved the pack of gum. Smoothing down the crumbled foil on his lap, he showed her the factory date. “See? That’s the date. Two, five, zero, nine, zero, six. Twenty-fifth of September two thousand and six. That’s when what’s inside goes bad.”

  Marion picked up the foil, looked at it with pretend interest before giving it back to him. He wanted to shake her and seriously considered it for a full two seconds.

  “Okay, what about the lighter?” He fished it out, noticed how she drew back by an inch or so. “Can you explain this then? If it’s not from my time? From the future?”

  “No, I cannot explain it, nor can I tell you how the wind blows or why water flows downward. It is a device from your homeland, obviously your people are more advanced than mine in certain fields of study.”

  “Arghhhh! That’s such a cop-out.”


  “I am sorry you see things this way, Sir Ayjay.”

  I’m losing my mind. The doc said stress was killing me one neuron at a time. Maybe I just lost a bunch. Maybe I’m going to start drooling soon.

  A.J. sighed. “You’re not as sorry as I am, I can tell you that.”

  “No, Sir Ayjay, I am greatly sorry for what happened to you. I wish I could catch these ruffians and hang them high.” Her eyes blazed for an instant. “But what I am most aggrieved about is that you are not where you wanted to be… I…I do not know what else to say.”

  And I don’t know what to think.

  A.J. just looked at her, unable to say a word. That had to be a first. Speechlessness wasn’t exactly part of his infamous personality. The Shark always had something to say about everyone and everything. The Shark, when he opened his mouth, made people either cringe or grit their teeth. It would seem The Shark had just lost some of its teeth.

  Probably went the same way the neurons had.

  Wasn’t hearing voices a sign of madness too? Would Stephen King’s Evil Nurse character get a sledgehammer and bust his ankles so he’d stay with them for a long, loooong time? He chanced a quick peek Marion’s way. Maybe she’d already busted his skull instead.

  “Perhaps it shall come back to you in time. The attack, I mean. Sir Ayjay?”

  “I wasn’t…”

  Nothing to say. Not a damn thing.

  Usually, he could talk his way out of most situations, had learned to do so early because of his small size—though it no longer applied—and had always managed to argue things back in his corner. He couldn’t see how he’d talk his way out of this one. He looked up again, at those stars hanging a good quarter turn too much to the left.

  What the hell was with that?

  “Sir Ayjay, you can talk to me. I shall try to help if I can.”

  She sat beside him, the heat of her arm reaching his. In the lone candle’s shaky light, she appeared ghostly, a blonde, plump little ghost with worried eyes and the most delicious mouth. He reached out and ran his thumb over her round cheek. The weight of his predicament bore down on him all at once.